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Women That Left Their Mark Throughout History

Khalid Elhassan August 4, 2020 34 min

39. From Nurse to Cop

Lillian Armfield, seated center, in a 1910 photo with her parents and relatives. Daily Mail

Early in her career as a nurse, Lillian Armfield was exposed to Sydney’s darker side while working in an insane asylum. In 1915, Sydney formed a Women’s Police Force – the first of its kind in Australia – and encouraged nurses and asylum workers to apply. Lillian fit the bill on both counts, so she signed up.

Downtown Sydney in 1920. New South Wales State Records

Despite numerous hurdles placed in her way – gender discrimination and sexism were orders of magnitude worse back then – Lillian was badass enough to overcome them and soldier on. She became Australia’s first female detective and worked for over thirty years fighting crime and busting criminals.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.